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Inside Politics

House Speaker McCarthy Plays Cleanup After Trump Comments; Senators Fume Over Tuberville's Military Holds; DeSantis Attacks Trump-era Prison Reform Bill He Once Praised. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 28, 2023 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[12:30:50]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': Sources confirmed to CNN that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called Donald Trump to apologize for this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MCCARTHY, (R) SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Can Trump beat Biden? Yeah, he can beat Biden.

JOSEPH KERNEN, CO-HOST OF SQUAWK BOX, CNBC: It makes it complicated if he has got all these trials and then -- and all these stuff over hanging the --

MCCARTHY: It makes it complicated, also helps him win. The question is, is he the strongest to win the election? I don't know that answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: McCarthy said that yesterday morning before 8:00 a.m. and he spent the rest of the day trying to fix it. For evidence, look no further than our Breitbart. McCarthy gave an interview to the conservative outlet, seemingly for the express purpose of praising the former president. He said, "Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016." Apparently Trump allies are still not pleased.

Joining me now to discuss this and more Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the "New York Times," Laura Barron-Lopez of the PBS NewsHour and CNN's Gloria Borger is still with us. Gloria?

(LAUGH)

You have watched this relationship. We all have. It's really fascinating to see the way that -- I mean, it is symbiotic and they both kind of need each other, but it's clear that Kevin McCarthy is hearing other things in his ear besides 'Go Trump!'

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, I -- look, he said the quiet part out aloud, which everybody is saying, which is that people don't think Donald Trump may be the strongest candidate in a general election. But because he owes Donald Trump big time, perhaps even for his speakership, and you'll recall we were just talking about this, after Jan 6th when he went on the floor and blamed Donald Trump for the insurrection, within what seems like minutes, he went down to Mar-a-Lago and did that famous thumbs up picture.

BASH: I think we have that picture.

BORGER: Do we have that? There it is.

BASH: Yeah. Just in case anybody doesn't have that imprinted in their minds.

BORGER: Yes, right. And then Donald Trump said, OK, but you cannot criticize Donald Trump if he thinks he owns you. And he thinks he owns Kevin McCarthy and he might. And so McCarthy had to clean up on Aisle Six (ph) and call Breitbart and say, "OK, I changed my mind. Oops."

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: Those two examples also to me, combined with one in 2015, when McCarthy said out loud that the Benghazi Committee was designed -- he suggested that it was designed specifically to take down Hillary Clinton and then that cost him his speakership and he immediately backtracked.

BORGER: Right.

BARRON-LOPEZ: All these of those taken together show three pretty big moments where McCarthy has demonstrated that, at the end of the day, it's about attaining and maintaining power. And he sees Trump as his avenue to do that.

BASH: I want to play -- I mentioned that some of his -- Trump's allies are still not pleased. One of them is Steve Bannon. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP CHIEF STRATEGIST: Trust me on this. All they are talking about is how to off load Trump. Trump is going to be the nominee and Trump is going to be the president of the United States again. If that's not emblazoned on Kevin McCarthy's, quite frankly, below three-digit-IQ brain, it ought to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I mean, really?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I don't know if would say I'm surprised by the viciousness of those comments coming from Steve Bannon, but let's also remember, this is coming at a time too that hard-right members in Congress, hard-right members of the House as well have also increasingly threatened to stalemate and block legislation which, even going back to earlier -- you talked about the episode on Jan 6th, one thing that has changed here is, these members in his conference that he's trying to basically lead at this point, Trump only has a tighter grip at this point maybe over of that hard flank. So at a time where his hold on his coalition is looking even more tumultuous, you have comments like this. You have a sort of sense of urgency on his part to go and claim his support for Trump, even if it's not pleasing all allies.

BASH: Somebody who had Kevin McCarthy's job, Paul Ryan, who is not a fan of Donald Trump --

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right.

BASH: -- because he doesn't have the job anymore, he can say whatever he wants.

[12:35:00]

(LAUGH)

He was out this morning. Listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KERNEN: Would most people still not say that the Republicans should run someone else?

PAUL RYAN, (R) FORMER SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I don't have Kevin's job. I used to have Kevin's job. What is Kevin's job? It's making the House work. His job is to make the House work and not make life difficult for his members.

KERNEN: OK.

RYAN: I don't have that job anymore. So I'm very clear with -- look, it's a disaster if we nominate Trump. You know, I think that I have been saying this for a long time. I'm for anybody not named Trump right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Who is going to be on that show tomorrow, John Boehner?

BORGER: Yeah.

(LAUGH)

Well, this is something McCarthy -- he can't say. I mean, McCarthy, it's so ironic. Here he has reached the pinnacle of his political career, and he's a political hostage at the same time. He can't say what he really thinks, which is what he said the first time with a little bit of candor, which is dangerous in Washington. And Paul Ryan just said what a lot of people think and what McCarthy may think, but he can't because of Donald Trump and the right wing of the party --

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah.

BARRON-LOPEZ: And the voters.

BORGER: -- axing him, and the voters. He wants to keep control of the House as well. He's got to think about that.

KANNO-YOUNGS: You spoke to the candor as well of his comments here and it does come as, you know, you are seeing members of the Republican Party start to question whether or not Trump is the sole candidate to galvanize a Trump base. He's the only person who can execute Trumpism and appeal to grievances of some of those voters that we're talking about. I think it's interesting the candor he displayed there and it's something that has echoed among other members of the party too when they see people like DeSantis kind of employing some of the same tactics as well, and the question over whether or not Trump is the best person to galvanize the Trump base.

BASH: And they are not just guessing, they are looking at data. They all see data.

BORGER: Yeah.

BASH: And that's basically what Kevin McCarthy was talking about. Everybody standby. "Hell bent on destruction." Next, we're going to give you brand new CNN reporting on a month's long tactic to stall the Senate. Stay with us.

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[12:41:45]

BASH: Just into CNN, hell bent on destruction, senators fume over growing number of blocked nominations. That's the headline quote from new reporting from CNN's Lauren Fox. It's about Senator Tommy Tuberville's hold on Defense Department nominees. The Alabama Republican is blocking roughly 250 -- that's right -- 250 military nominations and promotions. These are not all political appointments. They are service members with families.

But, much to the chagrin of many of his Republican colleagues, Tuberville is refusing to end his blockade unless the Pentagon changes a policy that reimburses service members who must travel out of state for abortion care.

GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski put it this way. Are we all going to start taking hostages now? CNN's Lauren Fox is joining our conversation. That quote is just absolute gold.

Lauren, this reporting is really interesting because there's so much happening on Capitol Hill that it's sometimes easy to lose sight of something that is so big and so important when it comes to the lives of people who are serving this country in military.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and the Senate's core role is to advise and consent, right? To vote on nominations. And right now, because of this hold from Tuberville, they are unable to do that on hundreds of military nominations and promotions. And they could put them on the floor. One senator cannot block you from ever holding a vote on a nominee, but it could take months, potentially years at this point to move through the number of nominations.

BASH: Because they'd have to do them each at a time.

FOX: Exactly. So one of the things that you're starting to hear from Republicans and Democrats is, do we need to look at changes to how we deal with military promotions? Does everyone who has a military promotion coming before the senate, do they need to actually be senate confirmed? And these are really early discussions, these are really early ideas that people are having when you ask senators, sometimes in the moment, getting on an elevator, they say one idea could be X, Y or Z.

These are not really ideas yet that the leadership is taking on, but it just gives you a sense of the frustration that is so palatable right now. I talked to Jeanne Shaheen, she is a Democrat from New Hampshire. She serves on the Armed Services Committee. She says if you don't want to vote, why are you here?

BASH: Right.

FOX: If you like a nominee, vote for them; if you don't like a nominee, vote against them but don't hold up everyone.

BASH: Because, I mean, look, we have seen this tactic many times by members of both parties, some similar things are happening as we speak. Some Democrats or those who caucus with Democrats, but it's not as blanket as it is now. I want to play what John Kirby, the White House National Security Coordinator, he is also a Retired Navy Admiral, what he said to our colleague Brianna Keilar about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL COORDINATOR: Summertime is our biggest move time. It's a time when we try to get families settled before the fall, before school. Not allowed to move, not allowed to buy new houses, not allowed to set their kids up in school, I mean it's immensely disruptive to the military family. Family's ability to accommodate military life is a big factor in your ability to stay in the service and to want to keep serving the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: What happened to not playing politics with America's military?

[12:45:00]

BORGER: I think it went away. I think -- you know, the word that comes to mind here is tantrums. These are just grown people having tantrums. They don't like something, let's stop the Department of Justice nominees with Senator Vance. We don't like something, let's stop military nominees. I think, it is -- they are there, as Jeanne Shaheen said to you, to legislate, to get things done. And instead, they are trying to leverage what --

BASH: Yeah.

BORGER: -- little power they may have and throw these tantrums. BASH: It's true.

BORGER: It's absurd.

BASH: No, no, it's true. But we have seen tantrums, another way to look at it if you're a senator is they are right. And that's one of benefits that they have right now under the current rules to hold things up. But again, I just go back to who this is about, it's members of the military.

BORGER: People.

KANNO-YOUNGS: And let's remember that this comes at a time where we do have polling that shows that already Americans, many Americans have a lack of faith in government, have lack of faith that government is working for them and functioning. And if you can't do the basic task of appointing members of the military, a member of national security that for years and decades we always thought was something that was rather bipartisan.

BORGER: Not political.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Not political, exactly. If you can't do this basic function, what does it mean more broadly for the American's people's faith in Congress working for them?

BARRON-LOPEZ: To your point, Dana, I think Senator Tuberville thinks that there's no political ramifications for doing this and he says that he's doing it because he doesn't agree with the Pentagon's abortion policy where it's allowing service members to travel out of state and help with that travel out of state if they need to receive an abortion, which is also striking. In his state, he probably doesn't face ramifications for doing that as well, but nationwide, for Republicans heading into the 2024 election, having a stance like that on abortion is not going to help them keep their majorities or win back more majorities.

BASH: Yeah, that's a whole different conversation about the core issue that he has. Everybody standby because Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, now he's slamming Former President Trump's signature Prison Reform Bill. But why did DeSantis vote when he was in the House for an early version of it? And we actually have some brand new K-File reporting to talk about that. That's next.

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[12:51:50]

BASH: Ron DeSantis is becoming less shy these days about saying how he would do things differently than Donald Trump. Here's what he said last month about a major bipartisan Trump-era Prison Reform Law.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: One of the things I would want to do as president is go to Congress and seek the repeal of the First Step Act. If you are in jail, you should serve your time, and the idea they are releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early, so that they can prey on people in our society is a huge, huge mistake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, that's presidential candidate DeSantis, but Congressman DeSantis actually voted for a version of that First Step Act. CNN's K- File Team found evidence of DeSantis supporting parts of that law he now says should be repealed. CNN's Andrew Kaczynski is here to share his reporting. So Andrew, what else are you finding?

ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN SENIOR EDITOR, K-FILE: Yeah, so he now calls it the Jailbreak Bill, but he voted for it in the House of Representatives. And despite these claims from his campaign that he would have voted against the final version of the bill, his campaign is actually already attacking Trump over parts of the bill that he voted for.

Now, look, this is part of the shift in criminal justice reform that we're seeing among Republicans after spikes in crime during the pandemic. DeSantis even once himself voiced support for easing mandatory minimums for early release from prison for some prisoners, and at an event that focused on criminal justice reform in July 2019 with Mike Pence, he actually looked to the First Step Act as a possible model for Florida. Take a listen to this.

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DESANTIS: We, I think need to look at, after seeing what the federal government did with the prison reform, and how to do some re-entry, we've seen some successes in Florida. And at the end of the day, you have somebody that has committed a crime, they are serving time. If they're getting out one way or another, don't we want them to get out with a chance to be productive?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KACZYNSKI: Now, his campaign says that he never supported the final version of the bill. They say it became more liberal. That charge is actually disputed by the bill's author, Former Representative Doug Collins, who has actually noted to us that there are some aspects of the bill like time credits -- which is when you get released from prison for good behavior, earn time credits, those were stronger in the House Bill. There were more offenses that eventually got excluded in the Senate Bill.

And they have also attacked Trump over a terrorist financier who was released under the compassionate release provisions of the First Step Act. That language was in the House Bill, and then in the Senate Bill that became law, DeSantis -- it did not change. And DeSantis voted for it right there. Now, there is one thing too that we should look at when we look at the context here and that's the recidivism rate of people who are re-arrested. And that's 12.4 percent with the First Step Act. Overall for all federal prisoners, it hovers at around 50 percent. [12:55:00]

BASH: All right, Andrew, thank you so much. I encourage everybody to go to CNN.com and see more of your reporting.

And the Presidential campaign cash is starting to flow. Where all those millions are going, up next.

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BASH: Today, new data on the big money in the 2024 race. Campaigns and outside groups have spent a combined $70 million, and it's only 2023.

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